


I'm Not Trying To Nag

by Phrenotobe



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/M, Gen, Gratuitous saddles, Humanstuck
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-16
Updated: 2014-06-16
Packaged: 2018-02-04 20:12:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 988
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1791748
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phrenotobe/pseuds/Phrenotobe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Equius sees her in the paddock, patting the horses and slipping out of sight before he can get there, hopping the fence with a flash of suntanned leg and the grey-white of her sneaker soles.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I'm Not Trying To Nag

Equius sees her in the paddock, patting the horses and slipping out of sight before he can get there, hopping the fence with a flash of suntanned leg and the grey-white of her sneaker soles.  
He checks on everyone - the mustang is jittery and the carthorse is quite highly strung, but none of them have any marks on them. He pats them gently, fingercombs the knots out of their manes and frowns. He doesn't know what to do.  
Her infractions become more frequent, but she's always quick on her feet. The horses seem less ill at ease, but Equius frets for all of them.

It’s three months already when he’s finally fast enough, coming back with a bale under each arm. She turns to flee but he barks out a “Wait!” with a far harsher sound than he meant to.  
She locks into place, and turns to see him.  
Close up, her face isn’t the one he thought she might have. One of the hispanic girls from the city, she’s got eyes with a fold and dark, red-brown irises that match her hair. She wrinkles her nose, pulling the rest of her face into a grimace and setting off dimples in both cheeks.  
“Can I help you?” she asks, like it’s Equius doing the imposing.

He keeps his mouth firmly shut as he puts the hay into the enclosure, trying to think of what to say.  
“You keep coming back here,” he manages finally.  
“That sure is a thing I do!” she says, “These are lovely horses. Are they yours?”  
He doesn’t look at her when he says yes.  
“Oh, that’s great,” she says, her voice chipper, “Can you tell me some things about them? I’ve got a camera and a notebook, and you seem like you know your way around.”  
Equius’s mouth turns up into a smile, despite himself. She didn’t seem to falter when she saw the after-effects of the farrier accident he’d had when he was thirteen, and he takes a step forward to pet the horse closest to him, a beautiful roan with a black mane.  
“Of course,” he said.  
She leans, rolling on to her toes.  
“So,” she says, “Does every horse need a saddle?”  
Equius puffs up his chest, ready to get _really specific_.  
Aradia listens, pattering around the paddock as she goes. She touches everything, including the shady tree at the far end, the carthorse’s fluffy hoof feathers, smelling the hay and prompting him whenever he rumbles to a stop. Equius is as technical around horses as he gets around his machines, and when she asks to see some saddles, he brings them out for her to check.  
“Say I had weak legs,” she says vaguely with a gesture, “Can’t sit up straight. I’ve got terrible posture. What if I wanted to ride?”  
Equius gives her another look up and down. He’d wanted to, and wanted to put his hands where she’d put hers on the animals like an echo, but he’d avoided it for reasons of propriety. Inner city girls are uncouth and unusual. His father told him that.  
“I would need to show you correct posture so you do not embarrass yourself,” he says gruffly. Aradia’s legs look and act perfectly fine.  
“What if I really couldn’t?”  
He grunts, picking up a saddle on each arm and bringing them back to the house to be stored. She follows along, a little gingerly now they’re away from the horses and the open air. He goes inside and she hovers at the door, not scared but certainly suspicious of it.  
“I could make you a harness,” he mumbles, “To hold you in the correct position. You would still need to learn to ride and make the necessary adjustments.”  
He fumbles with a saddlebag in a closet, pulls out a particular piece.  
“This is a side-saddle,” he continues, “For those who wear skirts.”  
Aradia’s mouth twists into a moue, and she finally enters, with only a cursory acquiescence to the mat at the door for getting the dirt off of her shoes.  
Equius notes her expression, and puts the towel around his neck to wick away the sweat that is cooling on his nape under the air conditioning.  
“Is there something wrong?” he says.  
She kicks her sneaker on the kitchen tile.  
"I don’t know, would you still be this nice if I wasn’t a pretty girl?” she asks, fixing him with a stare.  
Equius clears his throat, taking a short step back and covering his nervousness by reaching for the refrigerator door, bringing out some milk and placing it on the side.  
"-which you know, qualifying a person based on their appearance and gender is kind of terrible so lets not go there-” she adds. He nods, his back still turned as he brings two glasses out of the cupboard and sets them on the kitchen island.  
"let’s say I'm a sentient hominid who likes horses, could I still come back?"  
Equius reaches for a kitchen towel, wringing it in his hands under cover of the kitchen counter’s edge.  
“A good deal of that is irrelevant,” he manages, “If you are asking for a friend, they will need insurance to ride. There is also a rental fee.”  
She pulls out a piece of paper and drops it on his kitchen island between the fruit bowl and the empty glasses.  
“It’s my cousin’s birthday in two months,” she says evenly, tapping the picture. A goofy-looking kid in a hot topic shirt covered in busty fairies is enthusiastically embracing a standoffish nerd in acrid neon yellow, “He loves animals, so I’ve been collecting pictures. But I want something better. You know, memories.”  
Equius pinches the bridge of his broken nose.  
“Insured?”  
“Broken spine,” She says, tipping up her chin.  
Equius drags the picture over, noting the chair, and Aradia clears her throat.  
Equius feels a fresh crop of perspiration rise on his neck.


End file.
